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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24527254">Is there still an 'us'?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko'>Akiko_Natsuko</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Take Pride in What I Am 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fairy Tail</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Forgiveness, Friendship/Love, M/M, Secrets</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:20:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,163</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24527254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Loke had known that it was naïve to hope that he could come back from what happened with Lucy and the Celestial Spirit King and find that everything was the same. It hadn’t stopped him from hoping, and maybe that was why it was so painful to find himself staring at Natsu’s back. The Dragon-slayer carefully facing away from him, not letting him see his expression, to know if his words – explanations that he should have shared a long time ago, heartfelt apologies that were too little too late – were being heard. </p><p>Loke's secrets had been unraveled, he had been returned to the Celestial Spirit World, and he wasn't sure where that left him and Natsu.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Natsu Dragneel/Loke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Take Pride in What I Am 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>I Take Pride in What I Am 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Is there still an 'us'?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord  <a href="https://discord.gg/6sSddAWa5c">The Unholy Trinity</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>   Loke had known that it was naïve to hope that he could come back from what happened with Lucy and the Celestial Spirit King and find that everything was the same. It hadn’t stopped him from hoping, and maybe that was why it was so painful to find himself staring at Natsu’s back. The Dragon-slayer carefully facing away from him, not letting him see his expression, to know if his words – explanations that he should have shared a long time ago, heartfelt apologies that were too little too late – were being heard. It was hard to tell how he was reacting because for how expressive Natsu’s body usually was, today it was a blank slate, held rigidly in place. He wasn’t sure whether Natsu was purposely shutting him out, or if the Dragon-slayer just didn’t know how to respond. Neither bode well for Loke being able to fix this mess, and worse, he wasn’t sure that he deserved to.</p><p>“…I’m sorry,” he trailed off uncertainly, not knowing what else to say. <em>I’m sorry that I lied to you that I kept this secret. I’m sorry that Lucy found out first. That I can’t be here all the time anymore. </em>There were no words for everything that lay between them now he realised, and he looked down, hands curling into fists at his side. His guilt over what had happened with Karen was one thing, and while it still lingered, a sharp pain lessening to an ache now with his acceptance and forgiveness from Lucy and the others. This was another, and he shifted from foot to foot, aching to reach out, to see Natsu’s face, even if all he found was anger and a complete and utter lack of forgiveness, at least then he would know. At least then…</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me before all this?” Natsu’s voice was so quiet that Loke would have missed it if he hadn’t been straining to hear it, that was like a punch to the stomach, but not as much as the steel he could hear beneath it as that told him just how hurt, and angry the Dragon-slayer was. In the heat of battle, or when people were threatening his friends and family, Natsu’s temper would burn bright and hot, his anger loud and explosive, and impossible to miss. Loke knew how to deal with that anger, but this was something different. This rage ran cold, born of pain, and hurt, and it was all the more terrifying for it, and worse Loke knew that he was the one to blame, that he had caused this.</p><p>“Natsu…” He trailed off, realising that he didn’t know what to say. At the sound of his name, the Dragon-slayer finally turned to look at him, but his expression was closed off, eyes burning into him and Loke sighed. He’d hoped that it would be easier if he could see Natsu’s face, but there was no give in that expression, and he shifted uneasily, running a hand through his hair as he tried to work out what to say. What words could he say to make Natsu understand, but nothing came to him, and deep down he knew it was because he had no excuse really. And it wasn’t as though Natsu hadn’t been aware that there was something different about him from when they had switched bodies, it would have been easier to explain then, maybe not all of it, but enough. Instead, he had hidden what he really was from Natsu, and yet still allowed himself to fall into a relationship with the Dragon-slayer even though he knew that it would or should have ended in tragedy. “I should have told you,” he said, letting his hands fall, knowing that it wasn’t enough.</p><p>“You should,” Natsu echoed, still watching him. “I would have helped, Loke, or even if I couldn’t have done anything to fix the situation, then at least I would have known. You wouldn’t have been alone…but you didn’t even give me that choice. Instead…” It was Natsu who trailed off now, looking away, but not before Loke glimpsed the hurt, the pain that ran bone-deep. The same expression he’d worn when Lucy had informed Natsu and the rest of the guild about what had happened between them and the Celestial Spirit King, about how close he had come to disappearing without a word. He squeezed his eyes shut as he finished the word Natsu hadn’t been able to bring himself to say.</p><p>“Instead, I nearly disappeared without saying goodbye, without a word…” <em>Just like Igneel,</em> he realised belatedly, heart twisting painfully in his chest. How many times had he watched Natsu come back from searching for his foster-father defeated and hurting? How many nights had been disturbed by dreams, nightmares of being left alone? How many times had Natsu, in a weakness he would only show Loke, made him promise to come back? Loke felt sick to his stomach, realising that he had almost done the same thing he had cursed Igneel for doing a thousand times, resenting the Dragon for the harm he had done. “Natsu…”</p><p>“Don’t…” Natsu had been watching him he realised, seeing the understanding blossom in his expression, the realisation and the guilt. The Dragon-slayer was sat rigidly, as taut as a bowstring ready to be released, hands clenched against his thighs, sparks dancing across his fingers. Loke hesitated for a moment, feeling the heat building in the air, and knowing that Natsu was barely a breath away from lashing out. Then he moved, ignoring the instincts telling him to retreat and instead moving towards the Dragon-slayer. Quietly, he circled the bed, ignoring the soft protest for him to stay away, moving slowly and steadily until he was in front of Natsu, and sinking down to his knees. He itched to reach out, to rest his hands over Natsu’s clenched ones, but he wasn’t sure whether that would be a step too far at the moment and he settled for letting his hands hover halfway between them.</p><p>“Natsu,” he started, and then deliberately paused, waiting until Natsu lifted his head to meet his gaze. This close there was no shelter from the storm in his eyes, and Loke let himself be swept up in it for a moment, knowing he didn’t deserve to be sheltered from it this time. Then he took a deep breath. “I should have told you in the beginning, or after we switched bodies. You knew something was different about me, about my magic, you even asked me about it.” That had been an uncomfortable conversation, and the first time that Loke had first outright lied to his boyfriend, not that omitting, to tell the truth, was any better.</p><p>“So, why didn’t you?” Loke wasn’t sure if it was imagination, the desperate hope that he could still fix this, but Natsu’s voice was a little softer this time.</p><p>“Because I was selfish,” he admitted quietly, hating himself even as he said it.  <em>I didn’t want anything to change,</em> he admitted to himself now that he was confronting his reasons. “What we have…what we had,” he corrected, heart twisting, hoping that it wasn’t ‘had’ but not daring to hope for more. “It was something new, something that was just mine, that had nothing to do with the past and what I was, and I wanted to keep it that way.”</p><p>“You thought that it would change things?”</p><p>“It would have,” Loke did reach out now, tentatively brushing his fingers over Natsu’s knuckles and when the Dragon-slayer didn’t pull away, he tangled their fingers together and squeezed. “I don’t mean that you would have changed how you saw me or treated me, but it would have changed things. It would have put a time limit on anything, and you would have watched me eventually fade away…” If it wasn’t for Lucy that was what would have happened because he could never have appealed to the Celestial Spirit King like she had, he wouldn’t have dared, wouldn’t have felt that he had the right. Even now, part of him couldn’t believe that he had been granted a way back, absolved of his crime, given him a chance for something more.</p><p>
  <em>…with Natsu…</em>
</p><p>“And now?” Natsu asked, expression unreadable as he looked at their linked hands and then met his gaze once more, and Loke hated it. Natsu was open and expressive, it was part of who he was, and something that Loke with all his secrets and guilt had been drawn to like a moth called to a lamp.</p><p>“Now?”</p><p>“There are rules, right? For you, for the Celestial world…for us?” Natsu practically whispered the last, and Loke felt as though his heart had just done a complicated dance in his heart – hope and dread gripping him, his stomach plummeting even as his heart raced. <em>There’s still an us?</em> He wanted to ask, but he couldn’t – not through a lack of courage, but because his mind was caught on what Natsu had asked.</p><p>Rules.</p><p>   Yes, there were rules. Rules that he had already broken once, which had led to the mess that had spiralled into all this, and he wasn’t sure he could break them again. Then there was the fact that he was Lucy’s Spirit now, she held his key, and while he could come and go more or less at will once he’d regained his full strength, he was still bound to her. He knew that Lucy wouldn’t mind, after all, she had been the one to summon him and shove him in Natsu’s direction so that they could talk, but it wasn’t fair to rely on her. But it was more than that, their worlds were different now, not just in terms of distance but in the flow of time, and Loke would see so many more lifetimes than Natsu. He didn’t realise that his grip had tightened, bordering on painful, as every obstacle occurred to him, the difficulties seemingly insurmountable until Natsu squeezed back with a quiet. “Loke?”</p><p>“There are…” Loke wouldn’t lie to him, not now, not after everything that had happened. “And there are other things that I need to tell you about being a Celestial Spirit, about the Celestial world. Things that will make this,” he squeezed Natsu’s hand again, meeting and holding his gaze. “Us?” His voice rose, a question in that word, and Natsu hesitated before looking down at their linked hands before nodding slightly, and Loke’s heart soared and sank with his next words. “…difficult.” It wasn’t the right word, not really and he saw the hurt and felt the flinch that greeted the word, but he couldn’t think of a better one, and he hurried onwards before Natsu could get the wrong idea. “I need you to know all that before this goes any further, but Natsu?”</p><p>“…yes?”</p><p>“If you will still have me after all this, and after everything I’ve told you,” he grabbed hold of his courage, and lifted Natsu’s hands, leaning in to press a kiss to the back of each hand in turn. Taking heart from the fact that Natsu didn’t wrench his hands away, and was watching him, the blankness giving way to something softer, still hesitant, but hopeful as he met Loke’s gaze. “If you can forgive me, and there is still an ‘us’, then I will fight for it.” He held his breath as the words left his lips, as though expecting the heavens to open up and for the Celestial Spirit King to appear at his words, ready to punish him for even thinking about defiance. Nothing happened, and there was a pause before Natsu closed the gap between them, leaning in to press his forehead against Loke, and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of their breathing.</p><p>“I’m still angry,” Natsu whispered, and Loke winced and nodded, but when he tried to retreat Natsu held on, keeping him in place. “I’m still hurt that you didn’t tell me that I had to find out from Lucy…”</p><p>“I…”</p><p>“But,” Natsu cut across him, voice soft but firm. “But I want there to still be an ‘us’.” The Dragon-slayer lifted his head, eyes bright with the fire that Loke had fallen for. “So, tell me about these rules, about Celestial Spirits and your world, and tell me the truth.” A warning and a plea, and Loke nodded, ready to promise Natsu the world at that moment as hope roared to life in his chest. “Then we can see.” It wasn’t a promise, but it was a chance, and Loke nodded, accepting the terms. With a final squeeze, he released Natsu’s hands so that he could rise, moving to settle beside the Dragon-slayer on the bed, taking comfort from the fact that Natsu immediately pressed close, relaxing into the warmth as he seized the chance he had been given.</p><p>“So, about the Celestial Spirit World…”</p><p> </p>
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